Baltimore artist R. Wayne Reynolds is not a magician. But he can perform what seems like magic. Taking a tiny piece of flat, paper-like, 22-karat gold, he rubs it between his fingers and presto -- no gold. The shiny piece of deep yellow metal is gone.
But Mr. Reynolds, a graduate of the Maryland Institute of Art with a degree in painting, isn't in the business of making gold vanish. He is a gilder who specializes in the conservation and restoration of gilded objects. He also designs, builds and gilds original frames and makes reproductions of period frames.
Plus, he climbs ladders and balances on scaffolds to gild architectural features like crown moldings and ceiling medallions. With his team of gilders, he has worked at the White House, the Capitol, the National Gallery of Art, Blair House, Government House in Annapolis, and for numerous private collectors.
"Gilding is not brushing bronze powder on something to create a gold finish," says Mr. Reynolds. He does not paint objects with a liquid form of gold. He very carefully lays, piece by piece, solid, but very, very thin sheets of gold on frames, furniture or decorative trims and moldings, usually, but not exclusively, made of wood. While today gilders work to create special looks and finishes with gilding, traditionally the goal was to make the object look like it was made of gold.
"I use gold so thin, 1/250,000 of an inch thick, that when you rub it hard, it just literally disappears into the air," says Mr. Reynolds, standing in the gilding room of his quiet loft-studio on Falls Road near 36th Street.
But although the gold sheets are extremely thin, they are gold. And the use of the noble metal, combined with the technical embellishing process, makes gilding rather exclusive. For example, Mr. Reynolds makes a gilded reproduction of a 19th-century frame for $2,000. A Reynolds original gilded mirror with a shell motif costs about $5,000.
However, the tiny piece of gold Mr. Reynolds just rubbed out of existence is probably worth less than a penny because it has been hammered cobweb-thin by a process called goldbeating, an ancient craft developed 5,000 years ago by the Egyptians. Today, with the use of modern machines and the skill of the goldbeater, 1 ounce of gold can cover 175 to 200 square feet.
The product of goldbeating is a 3-inch square of gold, called gold leaf. It is so thin that a sigh will send it sailing across the room. The slightest touch of a finger will tear it. If a gold leaf gets a wrinkle on its surface, gilders blow it away.
Twenty-five gold leaves come packaged very carefully between pieces of very fine tissue paper, bound like a small book. Each gold leaf costs about a dollar. A gilder might use 200 to 300 gold leaves to restore the golden beauty to the ceiling of the caucus room in the U.S. Senate's Russell Building.
On a quick tour of his studio, Mr. Reynolds explains that he used oil gilding on the caucus room ceiling. Water gilding is also a traditional process for applying gold leaf. Water gilding produces a bright, shiny look with a high mirror finish. Oil gilding has a matte finish.
Both procedures require patient, painstaking applications of gesso -- a mixture of calcium carbonate or chalk, rabbit skin glue, and water. The gesso goes over carved wood to make the material extremely smooth so the gold will go down correctly and give the appearance of solid metal.
From seven to 15 layers of gesso are applied with a brush in a time-consuming process that demands that each layer dry before the next is applied.
Water and oil gilding require the use of the same three simple tools. Today, these tools are laid out on a table in the gilding room where Mr. Reynolds is going to demonstrate water gilding for a visitor. On the table are the gilder's cushion, a flat wooden frame, about 6 inches by 10 inches, covered by a tightly drawn piece of chamois; the gilder's knife, similar to a regular kitchen knife or spatula, but with a long, straight blade about 10 inches long; and, the gilder's tip, a small, flat brush made of sable held between two pieces of cardboard. Within arm's reach are a plastic cup of water, a second soft brush and a row of tiny ball-like ornaments from a classic Federal mirror.
As the demonstration begins, Mr. Reynolds gets a tissue-paper book, places it on the gilder's cushion, and opens to a page containing a gold leaf. Taking the knife, he cuts a small piece of gold leaf from the 3-inch square. Then, in a movement that seems as natural as breathing, he lightly rubs the sable brush across his forehead and touches the gilder's tip to the small piece of gold leaf. The thinner-than-thin metal quickly clings to the soft hairs of the brush.
"The gold adheres to the brush because of the charge of oil from my forehead," says Mr. Reynolds, as he secures one of the tiny round ornaments in front of him. The ball, which is about 1/2 inch in diameter, has been covered with a reddish-clay, called the bole, which also contains rabbit skin glue. The bole is a traditional part of the gold-leaf application, although sometimes it is not used with oil gilding.
The purpose of the bole, which is softer than the gesso and usually red or mustard in color, is to provide a flexible cushion-base for the polishing, called burnishing.
Quickly, Mr. Reynolds takes another brush, dips it in the water, and brushes it over the bole. The water activates the rabbit skin glue. Then in a deft move that he has performed thousands of times in his 15 years of gilding, he touches the gold leaf on the gilder's tip to the wet bole. The leaf immediately clings to the surface. Using the gilder's tip, Mr. Reynolds carefully shapes the gold leaf around the ornament.
Later, he will go back and fill in any gaps, called holidays. When dried, the ornament, now an intense, yellow gold, will be burnished to a high finish with an agate stone, and then covered with clear shellac. "Burnishing requires the most skill, determination and patience. The challenge is to get just the proper look," says Mr. Reynolds. That look is pure gold, bright and shiny.
Sometimes, this rich gold is glazed to tone down the yellow or to give it an antique patina. While there are variations, toning is usually done before and after shellacking. In his conservation and restoration work, Mr. Reynolds doesn't just apply gold leaf, he works to create a particular luster or patina that doesn't look new, but looks old.
Aside from the toning, the color of gold will differ depending on how much copper or silver has been added to it. Colors like lemon gold, white gold and French gold are examples of gold combined with differing amounts of alloy. "But 22 karat is my standard," says Mr. Reynolds. "Sometimes I will use 24 karat, which is pure gold and will not tarnish. But in most situations, you can get that same fine gold look with 22 or 23 karat," he says.
Metal leaf usually denotes copper or tin sheets with no gold added. These metals are cheaper to use and, to the untrained eye, they look as good as gold. But Mr. Reynolds, a traditionalist who uses formulas and procedures based on information from a 14th-century Italian manual on gilding, prefers all that glitters on his projects to be the real thing.
And, while he doesn't make magic, Mr. Reynolds is a master at transforming. Give him a week or two and he'll turn a decaying 19th century gilded frame into a newly gilded and toned gem, fit for the White House. Give him a few minutes and he'll turn a little wooden ball, covered with unattractive reddish clay, into a tiny sphere of gold.